Typically, it isn't the ideal situation, but that paycheck sure made everything a lot better.

INSIDER spoke to dozens of actors to find out what their first paying gig was. While a few of them were lucky enough to land a showbiz job at a young age, the majority of the stars we spoke to had pretty humble beginnings.

Some stuck close to home, while others found their bounty in restaurants, snack shops, sports arenas, and even a junkyard.

Find out how your favorite TV stars first began earning a living below:

"Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." star Ming-Na Wen worked in her family's restaurant.

"My first job was working in my parents' frickin' restaurant. Those slave-drivers! I was working there at like 12, 13 years old. They'll deny it, of course, because you know. I was waitressing, and then I was a cashier. Yeah, that was how I earned my keep in my family."

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"Superstore" star Ben Feldman was fired from an ice cream shop.

Ben Feldman attends the "Rise" New York premiere in 2018.
Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

"Baskin Robbins was my first real job. I was like 14, and I got hired at Baskin Robbins and fired for giving away ice cream. Because I was a 14-year-old who worked at an ice cream store. So yeah, I naturally did what any 14-year-old would do, which is give all of his friends giant, bathtub-sized ice cream scoops. And then, I got fired. That was my first job, and probably the closest I'll ever have gotten in the real world to 'Superstore,' because after that, it was waiting tables constantly."

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"Pitch Perfect" star Anna Camp taught ballroom dancing.

"I taught cotillion in South Carolina. It's ballroom dancing. I had taken it and my best friend, her mom owned the company, and so in eighth grade I decided to help teach. I got like eight dollars. It was fine. I was teaching little kids how to foxtrot. It was super cute."

"Shameless" actress Isidora Goreshter was a hostess.

"At 16, I worked as a hostess in a cafe on Main Street in Huntington Beach, California. It was during the summer and the Vans US open surfing competition was happening. So during our breaks, we would run down to the beach and watch all the pro surfers compete."

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"Lethal Weapon" star Damon Wayans forged papers to work at a summer program.

"I worked in the Summer Youth Corp. I forged working papers at 12 years old to work, because you had to be 14. It was interesting, because I stole them from my guidance counselor, and then we forged them, and we got Summer Youth Corp. jobs. Basically, we just hang out, just keeping up the street. We played, you know, there was basketball. There was activities. It was just kind of rounding up kids, and taking them outside to play and stuff like that. Was I good at it? No, not at all."

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"Goliath" actress Diana Hopper worked for Abercrombie Kids.

Diana Hopper arrives at the premiere of "The Last Tycoon" in 2017.
Kevin Winter/Getty Images

"Abercrombie Kids was my first paying job. I was 16 years old, sitting at the food court at my local mall in Memphis, and a woman walked up, and asked if I wanted a job. If only getting every job were that easy! Sometimes just being out in the world really wonderful things can happen."

Clark Gregg attends Hulu's New York Comic Con After Party in 2017.
Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images

"Aside from mowing lawns, I'd say it was Arthur Treacher's Fish & Chips, in the cook department, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. How was I? You take a triangular piece of fish, we hope it's fish, and put it into the batter, put it in the fryer."

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"Lethal Weapon" actor Clayne Crawford laid brick.

"My first job was placing brick when I was 13. I was working for construction at 13 and all through high school. It would be summer jobs, and that was it, and I mean I had to work all f---ing day, six to five."

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"Ocean's 8" actress McNally Sagal parked cars at a country club.

McNally Sagal attends the season 6 premiere of "Sons Of Anarchy" in 2013.
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"When I was 16, my first paying job was parking cars at a Country Club in Highland Park, Illinois. I had to wear black pants, a white dress shirt, and a tie. Sometimes people would say, 'Can you get the golf bags out of the back son?' I kind of liked being in what used to be an all-male job. It was very hard work, but I learned a lot about dealing with the public."

"The Orville" actor Chad L. Coleman worked for his foster dad's junkyard.

"My first paying job was working for my foster father on his 'Sanford & Son' replica junk truck, loading steel beams on the truck, and delivering them to the junkyard. Fifty bucks! Cold hard cash. I hated it. It was grueling, arduous work! I'm an artist so even back then, greasy hands and dirty clothes didn't work for me."

"The Strain" actor Joaquin Cosio wrote poetry for friends.

"My first paying job was writing poetry for my friends. I became addicted to poetry as a teen. I loved reading and I started writing, for myself, and for girls. My first girlfriends fell in love with me, I think more for my poetry than for me [laughs]. When word got out around high school, guys would pay me to write poems for the girls they liked. And those were the first pesos I earned on my own. Next year, I publish my fourth poetry book."

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"Queen Sugar" actor Timon Kyle Durrett was a commissioned artist.

"In addition to being an actor, I'm also a visual artist. Oils, pastels, charcoals, mixed media, wood — I've worked with them all. At Christian Fenger High School, my friend Jevon and I were — as we were considered — the top two artists during our four years there. Being as such, we were commissioned to paint nature scenes on the walls of the residential rooms of a nursing home, which was only a few blocks from our campus. After school, he and I would walk there, get our supplies from the storage closet, and paint one full scene per day. We worked great in tandem. Being able to give those wonderful people something more than a blank wall to look at was fun, and fulfilling — well worth my first paycheck."

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"Gotham" actor Chris Chalk washed dishes.

"Ugh. My first paying job, I was 14 or 15 and it was at Fuddruckers as a dishwasher. My pay was so little that I couldn't afford the 50% off lunch, so I ate uneaten food off the plates as I washed them."

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"Luke Cage" star Mike Colter sold concessions at football games.

Mike Colter attends the 2017 GQ Men of the Year party.
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

"I was a vendor at a football game. I walked around handing out popcorn, snacks, soda, beer, and whatever else I was selling at the time at South Carolina State College. I walked around throwing bags of peanuts, and taking the money, and going back, and loading up, and bringing more. I think popcorn and peanuts was my main thing because I was too young to sell the beer. I remember it was hot. You don't sell that stuff; it sells itself. People either want the peanuts and popcorn or they don't. You're either hungry or you're not. I didn't have to sell that much."

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"The Get Down" actor Skylan Brooks went straight to commercials.

"My first paying job was a Honda commercial that aired in Japan. I was like six or seven years old, with little experience. It had aired for a short time in the US, but the words were in Japanese so I never understood the commercial."

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"Adam Ruins Everything" host Adam Conover bagged groceries.

"I was a grocery bagger at a King Kullen supermarket on Long Island, New York. I was very bad at it. I tried to talk to the customers too much about their food choices! My bosses were like, 'Please stop bothering the customers.'"

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"Station 19" actor Jason George got jobs to pay for comic books.

Jason George visits Build in 2018.
Theo Wargo/Getty Images

"My first paying job was when I was 11 years old. I actually got two jobs to pay for my comic book addiction. I was a paperboy, pretty standard, but I also worked at the local baseball park, underage and under the table. I actually worked there from 11 until the age of 21, eventually becoming a vendor for the second half of my time. Because it paid so well, my colleagues were much older, people using it as one of their main jobs and people in med school or law school. You had to hustle hard but you got paid a percentage of your earnings, so the hustle paid off. I learned a lot about business and about how to get down socially. Let's just say, the job was a lot like 'Caddyshack,' but instead of golf it was baseball and the caddies would be us vendors, selling popcorn, peanuts, and CrackerJacks."

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"Younger" actor Dan Amboyer was in a play.

Dan Amboyer attends the "The Commuter" New York premiere in 2018.
Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

"I was a malnourished Dickensian pauper in 'A Christmas Carol' at Meadow Brook Theatre in Detroit. My family had gone to see this theatre's production every holiday season, and I wanted to be one of the kids in the show. I begged my parents to help me type up a little resume of my elementary school credits such as my star turn as Farmer MacGregor in 'Peter Rabbit: A Wonderful Name' and the like."

"We slid my starter resume into the theatre's box office window, and a few months later I had my first job. The Jacob Marley ghost scene was so terrifying to me that I developed a recurring nightmare about the angry ghoul coming to shake the 'clamorous chains he had forged in life' at me in my own bedroom, like he did at Scrooge. Finally, my dreams got so traumatic that my parents arranged it so I could sit with the Marley actor in his dressing room while he applied his ghastly makeup, so I'd realize that it was really all just playing pretend and no Victorian boogie men were coming to get me."

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Nickelodeon "School of Rock" actor Lance Lim sold gum at school.

"That's so hard to remember, but I think the very first paying job I had was when I was in middle school and I brought packs of gums to school and everyone would buy it off of me! Shortly after, it was acting."

"Designated Survivor" actor LaMonica Garrett sold newspapers.

"The first paying job I had was selling the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper on a busy street corner in Oyster Point, South San Francisco."

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"Lethal Weapon" actor Dante Brown was in a print ad.

Dante Brown arrives at the Television Academy's Performers Peer Group Celebration in 2016.
Getty Images

"Right when I started, at about two-and-a-half years old, my first-ever paying job was a Keebler print ad. I was in a high chair reaching for a cracker from the Keebler Elf. My mom has that very tear sheet in one of her Facebook albums. And said I was such a huge Bulls fan that all the wrangler had to say was "GO BULLS" and I'd splash a huge smile... just how they wanted, every time."

"Empire" actor Mo McRae worked at Ralphs.

"My first job ever was working for Ralphs grocery store. It mostly consisted of bagging groceries and wrangling shopping carts in the lot. I learned a lot about how people deal with others based on their occupation."

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"Jessica Jones" star Krysten Ritter modeled and worked as a telemarketer.

Krysten Ritter attends the "Jessica Jones" season two New York Premiere in 2018.
Matthew Eisman/Getty Images

"My first job was Mademoiselle magazine [as a model]. Yeah, it's still in the business but I was 15. I was also a telemarketer after that. I got in trouble because I would chit-chat with people. I'd be like, 'heeeey, what are you doing?' and apparently your boss is listening in. It's something you can get a job in at 16 and they work around your school hours. And it was pretty good, it was like $7 an hour...for then."

Rob Lowe did a local radio ad before he could read.

"The first thing I was paid for was back in Dayton, Ohio where I grew up, I did a local radio voiceover. I barely remember it, but I was so young I couldn't read yet. So they read me my dialogue, and then I would repeat it. So I was clearly very, very young. And I was paid $10 and a brand new Partridge Family album. I clearly needed a better agent. I remember it, it was Don Mendenhall's CarpeTalk. It was a local Ohio chain of carpet stores."

"Jessica Jones" actor JR Ramirez managed a smoothie shop.

JR Ramirez attends the "Jessica Jones" season two New York premiere in 2018.
Matthew Eisman/Getty Images

"I managed a Smoothie King in Tampa, Florida. I feel like I've worked in every telemarketing company there was in Florida. I've done every restaurant you can think of. My parents got me out there early."

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TV personality Chris Hardwick worked in his dad's bowling center.

"My first paying job ever was probably working at my dad's bowling center. It was like grabbing a bunch of people's smelly rental shoes and spraying it with disinfectant and cleaning up a lot of alcohol spills and cigarette butts. You know, people could smoke indoors in the 1980s. Uh, you know, cleaning toilets and, yeah, it was a character-building job."

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"This Is Us" star Milo Ventimiglia worked in a bakery.

"My first job I think I was working for a friend of mine's bakery, in the back. [It was] this warehouse packing up hot buns and sweet rolls, things like that, with a lovely crew that didn't speak a lot of English. And I didn't speak a lot of Spanish so I just smiled and laughed at the commonality of what we were doing, the task of the day. That was my first job."